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frojack writes:

Two new studies indicate that talking on the phone while driving does not translate into more accidents in the real world.

Studies from Carnegie Mellon University and the London School of Economics (full text of study) as well as a separate analysis of different data by The University of Colorado and RAND Corporation both indicate that real world data indicates that talking is not the problem.

A third study, by Virginia Tech published in the New England Journal of Medicine, used in-car and exterior video cameras on 100 cars, and also found that talking on the phone wasn't a risk factor, but dialling was. (Uniquely, this study could also evaluate "near accidents" because they had video.)

In the CMU/LSE study, the researchers explain (quoted in the Daily Mail):

"Using a cellphone while driving may be distracting, but it does not lead to higher crash risk in the setting we examined".

"While our findings may strike many as counter-intuitive, our results are precise enough to statistically call into question the effects typically found in the academic literature. Our study differs from most prior work in that it leverages a naturally occurring experiment in a real-world context."

The California Office of Traffic Safety welcomed the UC/Rand study about as warmly as someone receiving a speeding ticket, claiming the study was too narrow. Others point out that the risk is not in the actual talking, but rather in the reaching for, answering, and dialling of mobile phones.

The Virginia study did evaluate texting, neither of the other projects did. And even these results are surprising. The odds ratio of accidents attributable to different driver distractions is listed in this table. Dialling is a far greater risk than is texting. But risks are dramatically worse for novice drivers. Experienced driver handle distraction far better. For both groups, actually talking on the phone had an odds ratio of less than one (safer than not talking), perhaps because talking prevents other risky behaviour.

Taken together these results suggest Hands-Free + Voice Dialling might actually make us all safer without having to ban phone use while driving.